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Something's missing: Lack of presidential ads signals change for Pa.

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Not so long ago, Pennsylvania stood unquestionably as a swing state, one presidential candidates of both major parties thought they could win.

Democratic candidates knew they had to win the state to get elected. Republican candidates knew that if they won it, they would likely be president.

Maybe Republican nominee Mitt Romney still really believes he can win Pennsylvania, but with the decision by the presidential campaigns and their affiliated super PACs to stop advertising on television in Pennsylvania after Labor Day, the state is President Barack Obama's to lose.

As a result, the Keystone State is second-tier in importance behind states such as Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Virginia and even Wisconsin, which hasn't voted for a Republican for president in even longer (1984) than Pennsylvania (1988).

The campaigns and their super PACs are advertising on television in the other states, but not here.

"It's a big, and I think somewhat unexpected surprise," said Ross Baker, Ph.D., a professor of political science at Rutgers University. "I think the feeling was there would be a real battle for Pennsylvania, but I think clearly what the polls are picking up is a lot of strength for Obama."

Republican officials did their best last week to downplay Romney's refusal to air television advertising in Pennsylvania and the decision by Republican-affiliated groups to stop their commercials here on his behalf. The Republican departure prompted President Obama's super PAC to leave. The president's campaign stopped airing ads here at the end of July.

"Any people out there ... asserting that a one-size-fits-all campaign effort or that advertising dollars on TV are the only factors in this campaign (are) simply misinformed," Corbett said during a conference call last week.

He could end up right, but Obama is in the driver's seat, according to polls that still have him well ahead despite summer months of commercials battling between Obama's campaign, Romney and their respective super PACs. Super PACs are political action committees not directly affiliated with the campaigns that are allowed to raise and spend campaign money without restrictions.

On local broadcast and cable television, three super PACs backing Romney spent $702,229 on 3,080 commercials, according to records at the stations. The three super PACs were Crossroads GPS, affiliated with former senior adviser to President Bush, Karl Rove; Americans for Prosperity, founded by billionaire corporate titan David H. Koch; and Restore Our Future, run by former Romney campaign aides.

By comparison, Obama's campaign itself and a super PAC run by former Obama campaign officials, Priorities USA Action, spent $1,084,682 on 5,026 commercials, according to the records.

Perhaps more tellingly, Romney's campaign committee itself has spent nothing on campaign commercials in the state since the primary election April 24. By this time in 2008, Sen. John McCain's campaign had aired $687,578 worth of ads, almost as much as the Republican super PACs this time around.

The Republican advertising retreat is perhaps understandable in the context of before-and-after polls.

The first post-Pennsylvania primary poll had Obama up by 8 percentage points. The last two in August had him up 9 points.

After all that advertising, little changed.

Unless the state race tightens, one other fact of life in recent presidential elections will likely change: no major visits by the presidential campaigns here. Presidential and vice presidential candidates visited Northeast Pennsylvania repeatedly during the 2000, 2004 and 2008 campaigns, but the most recent this year was Vice President Joseph Biden in July.

Kate Meriwether, a spokesman for the Romney campaign in Pennsylvania, dismissed suggestions the campaign is giving up on Pennsylvania, saying that is "absolutely false." Many of the states where the campaigns are advertising, unlike Pennsylvania, allow early voting, she said.

Here, she and other Republicans said, the campaign is focused on its grass-roots effort - contacting voters, persuading them to back Romney and compiling lists of supporters to get to polls on Election Day.

The Romney campaign has two dozen offices across the state with 65 paid staffers whose effort so far is vastly superior to McCain's.

State Republican Party chairman Rob Gleason offered a similar argument about grass roots, but acknowledged Romney is suffering from months of advertising by the Obama camp that portrayed him negatively.

"As he continues to campaign, that starts to wear off and wear thin and the economy has gotten worse, not better. People are plainly frustrated, worried and they cannot find work and I think in the final analysis when they go into the polling booth ... they're going to vote for Mitt Romney," he said.

"If it was my decision, we'd be spending $9 million or $10 million on advertising," he said. "I told those people in the Romney campaign and the national chairperson that ... polls be damned, we are poised to win," he said. "Seventy-five percent of our program is on target. The thing that isn't on target, of course, is a robust TV buy and I have reason to believe and I can't tell you what it is, that that will come sooner than later."

He declined to elaborate.

But Christopher P. Borick, Ph.D., director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion, said the advertising pullout signals clearly the campaigns don't consider Pennsylvania a priority, though things could change if polls tighten up.

"Right now, if you look at Pennsylvania and its track record (of voting for Democratic presidential candidates), it doesn't engender a lot of confidence in Republican circles that the state can be won," he said.

Pointing to victories statewide by Republicans such as Corbett and Toomey, Borick said Republicans can hold out hope, but there's a reason the Romney camp is off the air.

"Put yourself in the shoes of Republican strategists," Borick said. "(They say), 'We can dump lots of cash and we can get this race closer.' But close doesn't matter in Electoral College politics."

Whoever wins Pennsylvania - by a large margin or a narrow one - gets all of its electoral votes.

If Romney must, as many believe, win Florida and Ohio, plus Virginia, North Carolina and Wisconsin, "where do you have room for Pennsylvania in there?" Borick said. "You don't."

"You can't take the risk of allocating resources to a place that may come up short and give you nothing at all," he said. "That's where they're at right now. It's not that there isn't any chance here, it's just that it's not worth the risk."

bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com

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